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Phnom Penh, Cambodia
Half of Cambodia for Sale
May 06, 2008 10:19 AM
by
findingDulcinea Staff
by findingDulcinea staff
A surge in land speculation has resulted in the sale of 45 percent of the country’s landmass, and more than 150,000 Cambodians are facing eviction as a result.
A surge in land speculation has resulted in the sale of 45 percent of the country’s landmass, and more than 150,000 Cambodians are facing eviction as a result.
30-Second Summary
Recent domestic and foreign investment has caused land prices in the impoverished country to skyrocket, and has resulted in scores of forced evictions from coastal cities to urban slums, reports Britain’s The Guardian.
The Cambodian real estate market has suddenly become a haven for investors troubled by the effect of the sub-prime crisis on U.S. and European financial markets. Critics blame the Cambodian government for unlawful dealing and lax regulation of investors and land developers.
“[Prime Minister] Hun Sen and his ruling Cambodian People’s Party have, in effect, put the country up for sale,” writes Adrian Levy and Cathy Scott-Clark in the Guardian report.
Amnesty International has criticized Cambodian authorities for failing to protect victims of illegal evictions. The organization also accuses authorities of threatening and intimidating land rights activists. “It is becoming the practice of developers that if they want a piece of land and they are prepared to disregard the rules and procedures laid down they can do it,” said Brittis Edman, an AI researcher.
Inter Press Service reports that the Cambodian government denies that forced evictions occur.
Cambodia’s real estate market began heating up in 2002, when increased scrutiny by international banks after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 led domestic business interests to spend more money at home.
The Cambodian real estate market has suddenly become a haven for investors troubled by the effect of the sub-prime crisis on U.S. and European financial markets. Critics blame the Cambodian government for unlawful dealing and lax regulation of investors and land developers.
“[Prime Minister] Hun Sen and his ruling Cambodian People’s Party have, in effect, put the country up for sale,” writes Adrian Levy and Cathy Scott-Clark in the Guardian report.
Amnesty International has criticized Cambodian authorities for failing to protect victims of illegal evictions. The organization also accuses authorities of threatening and intimidating land rights activists. “It is becoming the practice of developers that if they want a piece of land and they are prepared to disregard the rules and procedures laid down they can do it,” said Brittis Edman, an AI researcher.
Inter Press Service reports that the Cambodian government denies that forced evictions occur.
Cambodia’s real estate market began heating up in 2002, when increased scrutiny by international banks after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 led domestic business interests to spend more money at home.
Headline Link: ‘Country for Sale’
The Guardian chronicles how Cambodia, once ravaged by war and genocide, became a hotbed of foreign investment. “Foreign fund managers had started pitching up in Phnom Penh wearing linen shirts and khaki drip-dry jungle wear, alerted by the country’s unexpected boom in tourism that in 2006 had seen one and a half million visitors overcome the west’s collective memories of Cambodia’s recent past to travel to the temples of Angkor Wat.”
Source: The Guardian
Background: ‘Slum evictions highlight dark side of Cambodia’s building boom’
Dozens of people have been killed and tens of thousands, many of them slum residents, have been evicted from their homes in recent years, reports the AFP. “There is this unprecedented development boom in Phnom Penh, but on the other hand there’s more lawlessness, more landlessness,” said an activist with a legal aid organization.
Source: KI-Media
Cambodia’s current rise in forced and unlawful evictions has been caused by an “unprecedented property boom that is literally changing the landscape of this impoverished country,” reports TradingMarkets. “Now it has taken a life lf its own,” one foreign observer said in the article. “There is a lot of Asian money here, as well as a lot of investment, both domestic and international.”
Source: TradingMarkets
Local and foreign observers say that Cambodia’s real estate boom started in 2002, when domestic business interests started spending more money at home to escape increased scrutiny by international banks after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
Source: Inter Press Service
Reference: ‘Cambodia: Making the Poor Homeless’
Human rights organization Amnesty International has available on its Web site a report about an April 20, 2007, incident in which 105 fishing families and beach vendors were forcibly evicted from their village on the outskirts of the coastal town of Sihanoukville.
Source: Amnesty International
© 2009 Dulcinea Media, Inc.
